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pbahra writes "A few weeks ago Microsoft’s European chairman told TechEurope that the average amount of venture capital per head across Europe was just $7. Finland beat that with a single deal. The reported $42 million investment in Angry Birds developer Rovio translates to roughly $8 for each of the 5 million men, women and children in the country.Finnish blog ArcticStartup has extrapolated figures showing the total average VC investment per capita for the country was $46 in 2010 while for national neighbors Sweden, the figure was about $45. But, in what the blog calls "Arctic Valley", it is Finland that is currently attracting much of the attention.The question of why this country on the edge of the Arctic Circle should have such active entrepreneurs came up again in a conversation with Wilhelm Taht, the marketing director of Flowd, a social network for musicians and their "super-fans". It is one of several Finnish companies focused on the music business including Steam Republic and Hitlantis. "oeWith Nokia changing gear there is a lot of technical know-how all of a sudden which wasn’t available even two years ago," said Mr.Taht, diplomatically, about the savage job cuts at the struggling mobile phone giant. "oeThere's a culture of technically savvy engineers. Finns are not necessarily very talkative people, but when it comes to what they know about computers and programming it'(TM)s pretty staggering.""Link to Original Source